St. Luke's backs off plan to cut Cornwall ER hours

CORNWALL — St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital's Cornwall emergency room will remain open around the clock, at least for now.

BY MICHAEL RANDALL

CORNWALL — St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital's Cornwall emergency room will remain open around the clock, at least for now.

State Assemblyman James Skoufis and St. Luke's announced Wednesday that the hospital is backing off its request to close the emergency room at its Cornwall campus between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m.

The hospital had asked the state Health Department for permission to scale back the hours, citing patient volume as low as one per hour at the emergency department there during the overnight hours.

St. Luke's officials had said the cutback was one of several steps necessary to keep the hospital financially stable.

But the request triggered protests from politicians and the public, especially those for whom Cornwall was the closest emergency room.

"I'm extremely thrilled they chose to listen to the people," said Skoufis, D-Woodbury, who was among those leading the opposition.

Skoufis introduced legislation, which recently passed in the Assembly, requiring strict reviews of requests to reduce hospital emergency rooms to part-time status. He also delivered petitions with thousands of signatures opposing the cutback to the Health Department.

On Monday, hospital officials briefed the Health Department and lawmakers including Skoufis, state Assemblyman Frank Skartados and state Sen. Bill Larkin on the hospital's financial condition and steps that are needed to strengthen it for the future.

In a news release, the hospital called those meetings "extremely productive," while hinting that the idea of reduced emergency room hours could be revisited if other solutions are not found.

"We are taking a pause on the reduction of Cornwall (emergency department) hours, and taking steps toward the larger picture in all of this: seeking a partner or partners to continue to deliver high quality, efficient, safe patient care to our community," hospital President Robert Ross said.